SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
One Theory Beyond the Standard Model Could Allow Wormholes that You Could Actually Fly Through
Wormholes are a popular feature in science fiction, the means through which spacecraft can achieve faster-than-light (FTL) travel and instantaneously move from one point in spacetime to another.
And while the General Theory of Relativity forbids the existence of "traversable wormholes", recent research has shown that they are actually possible within the domain of quantum physics.
The only downsides are that they would actually take longer to traverse than normal space and/or likely be microscopic.
In a new study performed by a pair of Ivy League scientists, the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model could mean that there are wormholes out there that are not only large enough to be traversable, but entirely safe for human travelers looking to get from point A to point B.
The study, titled "Humanly traversable wormholes," was conducted by Juan Maldacena (the Carl P. Feinberg Professor of theoretical physics from the Institute of Advanced Study) and Alexey Milekhin, a graduate of astrophysics student at Princeton University. The pair have written extensively on the subject of wormholes in the past and how they could be a means for traveling safely through space.
[...] However, Maldacena and Milekhin emphasize that their study was conducted for the purpose of showing that traversable wormholes can exist as a result of the "subtle interplay between general relativity and quantum physics."
In short, wormholes are not likely to become a practical way to travel through space – at least, not in any way that's foreseeable. Perhaps they would not be beyond a Kardashev[*] Type II or Type III civilization, but that's just speculation. Even so, knowing that a major element in science fiction is not beyond the realm of possibility is certainly encouraging!
Preprint Reference:
Juan Maldacena and Alexey Milekhin, Humanly traversable wormholes, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.06618.pdf
[*] Kardashev Scale
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 31 2020, @04:23PM (2 children)
My scheme involves a cascade of overlapping experiments - if you can transmit information t microseconds into the past, a duplicate experiment picks up that information at -t/2 and re-transmits that information to -3t/2, repeat as necessary to casually text the winning lottery numbers to a purchaser at a retail sales point a comfortable amount of time before sales blackout.
For more information, deposit 0.25BTC to account AB3458F284E34812AE2340589BD3250879C
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by requerdanos on Monday August 31 2020, @05:16PM (1 child)
I have clearly underestimated your plan, for which I publicly apologize, and lend my support.
(Score: 3, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 31 2020, @05:48PM
Thank you for inspiring my sig. As a special thank you, I will tell you that 29e051c90531025e6edca9c8e9376005 is the MD5 hash of "Sucker"
🌻🌻 [google.com]